Harford County Board Removes Slaveholder Names From Two Elementary Schools

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — Two Harford County elementary schools now have new names, cutting ties with the historic slaveholders the buildings had been named for, and honoring a request by many residents to change the school names.

After an hour of debate, the Harford County Board of Education voted Monday night to rename William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary School to Old Post Road Elementary School and John Archer School to Harford Academy at Campus Hills, according to Havre de Grace Patch.

The process to change names began in June 2020 when a petition with 1,500 signatures was presented to the school district's superintendent, requesting to change the schools' names due to their perceived ties to slavery. Since then, residents have routinely asked at board meetings that Paca’s name be removed from the school.

Vicki Jones, president of the Harford County NAACP, helped bring the issue to the attention of the board in 2021.

"There was some opposition, but most people were open to it and understood. They knew that this is the right thing to do, " Jones said then, according to a Fox Baltimore report. "There's no room in our society for reminders of oppression, especially when it comes to our children."

In March 2022, the Harford County school board voted to remove the slaveholder names.

According to Maryland archives, Harford County resident John Archer fought in the revolutionary war and later served in the United States Congress; he owned at least eight enslaved people.

An Abingdon native, William Paca signed the Declaration of Independence, served in the state legislature and as governor; he owned more than 100 enslaved people, according to Maryland archives.